Stephane Daeuble: Crossing the Digital Divide with Citizens Broadband Radio Service
CBRS presents an alternative where fiber installation is difficult.
Broadband Breakfast Staff
The author of this Expert Opinion is Stephane Daeuble, head of enterprise solutions marketing at Nokia
For many Americans in underserved areas, the pivot to online life during the pandemic put them at a severe disadvantage. Without access to broadband, they had no way to work from home, Zoom with family, participate in online schooling or access telehealth resources. The recent federal infrastructure bill will help tackle this challenge as broadband may soon be accessible to many of the 30 million Americans currently without it. One of the technologies that will help to make this happen is Citizens Broadband Radio Service.
Although we often think of extending broadband in terms of installing optical fiber, there are edge cases where lack of subscriber density or other economic considerations make it difficult to justify the cost of installing any kind of cabling. While most often the case for rural areas, it also affects suburban and dense urban areas. An alternative for the last mile is fixed wireless access, but the mobile spectrum normally used by 4G private wireless (LTE) or 5G can be too expensive for these low-margin use cases. This is why FWA and CBRS turn out to be a perfect marriage.
Enter citizens' broadband radio service
First launched in 2017, CBRS is the United States' unique approach to sharing radio spectrum that was being underutilized by the U.S. Navy for coastal radar and military satellite ground stations. Under the sharing scheme, service providers can use the spectrum (3.5-3.7 GHz) to provide other kinds of wireless services. The industry developed a novel scheme to sense when incumbents, such as the U.S. Navy radar, are using the spectrum to ensure that other users of the spectrum are not interfering with them.
Of the various uses, most interest has been in delivering mobile broadband services using either 4G/LTE or 5G. Carriers such as Verizon have purchased CBRS licenses to supplement their existing spectrum, while cable companies such as Comcast will use it to get into the mobile services game.
Additionally, a variety of managed service providers and utilities will use it to provide industrial wireless connectivity for sensor networks, various autonomous technologies and other Industry 4.0 applications.
All of the above are linked to CBRS Priority Access License, that were auctioned for regional licenses like traditional spectrum. There is also a spectrum available for general authorized access in those bands not allocated to incumbent users and not interfering with priority, licensed users, that is open for any enterprises to use in a determined area, after registration.
Crossing the divide
Beyond the big players, small market independent operators, often rural service providers and Wireless Internet Service Providers, emerged during the CBRS spectrum PAL auctions and were interested in CBRS FWA to extend their last mile of coverage. Both LTE and 5G have FWA specifications that can be used with CBRS spectrum – CBRS PAL or CBRS GAA. CBRS has higher capacity than the frequencies typically used for mobile radio coverage in rural areas, such as the 600 and 700 MHz bands, although it requires higher gain antennas to achieve decent coverage over distance.
For rural broadband providers who cannot make the business case for extending their fiber or coax infrastructure to remote subscribers, CBRS FWA looks promising as WISPs will be able to serve many more customers than they can using Wi-Fi, for instance. Early tests presented at the 2019 Fall Technical Forum have shown that it is possible to achieve 25-50 Mbps on the downlink and 3 Mbps on the uplink within 5 miles of the antenna using LTE. Snow and rain have little measurable effect on the signal, but terrain and foliage need to be considered in designing coverage.
One of the advantages of CBRS is that the FWA home customer premise equipment is relatively inexpensive and quick to install. In typical rural applications, it will require a technician to install the CPE 15-25 feet off the ground on the side of the house or a small mast to ensure line of sight. In urban applications, however, the CPE can be installed by the subscriber, positioned out of line of sight when less than 2 miles from the transmitter and next to the window, if further from the radio tower. The simple gateway devices typically provide Wi-Fi coverage within the home.
Rural, suburban and urban
CBRS FWA is also of interest to groups as diverse as rural real estate developments and school boards. Older retirement communities, for instance, can now upgrade their development with broadband services quite inexpensively, without having to install coax or fiber. School boards can reach students to provide them with online teaching and resources. The school simply distributes inexpensive CBRS CPE to its students.
Image courtesy Nokia
One of the Federal Communications Commission's goals in designing the CBRS sharing scheme was to make wireless broadband more accessible. There was a recognition that innovation, learning and exploration now happen over broadband and that diverse communities in the country were being held back. The pandemic has underscored this need dramatically, and the early indication is that CBRS will play an important role in overcoming this digital divide and enabling a more inclusive society.
Stephane Daeuble is head of enterprise solutions marketing at Nokia. Daeuble's business acumen and technical understanding comes from his prior roles in several industrial automation, energy, IT, networking and telecom companies with roles spanning a number of different fields like product management, sales development and product marketing. In Nokia, and formerly Motorola, Daeuble sequentially headed 3G/HSPA, LTE and Small Cells global product marketing. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.
Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views reflected in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.
Related Topics:CBRSComcastFall Technical ForumfeaturedliveonlineMotorolaNokiaStephane DaeubleVerizonZoom
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Nominated by President Biden as Federal Communications Commissioner, Sohn understands the real reason net neutrality is necessary.
The author of the Expert Opinion is Ron Yokubaitis, CEO of Golden Frog
The Federal Communications Commission has persistently gotten communications wrong for the past 20 years, even before broadband was a thing.
The commission was supposed to oversee telecommunications networks while leaving the then-nascent internet alone for the most part, but they dropped the ball. Gigi Sohn is the right person to help the FCC get back to its open access roots.
The 1996 Congress envisioned an open, interconnected, interoperable and user-centric internet that offers users "control over the information they receive" and facilitates "diversity of political discourse." Congress knew that these goals necessarily required an underlying telecommunications infrastructure that was also robustly competitive and itself open, interconnected and interoperable. That is why they enacted new laws basically adopting and extending the FCC's even then longstanding Computer Inquiries regime that made the internet possible to begin with.
"Broadband" is now provided over fiber. Even broadband wireless requires fiber for backhaul. These are telecommunications facilities, that are – or should be – subject to the FCC's regulatory jurisdiction. Firms providing fiber-based transmission for a fee are – or should be – common carriers. That, in turn, means they must interconnect, interoperate with and sell network access to other telecommunications carriers and those who provide information services on reasonable terms.
Computer Inquiry, the 1980s AT&T and GTE divestitures and the 1996 legislation all so required. But the FCC went rogue in the late 1990s. It allowed the dominant telephone and cable companies to close their local infrastructure, which allowed them to dominate mass-market internet access. The FCC purposefully killed most local market competition. Most independent internet service providers and competitive local exchange carriers were then forced out of business. Only a few major players still compete at the local level, and it is they who control mass-market "access to the internet" over "Broadband."
Texas.net dueled early in the Lone Star state with Southwestern Bell
I started Texas.Net in 1994. We were one of the first independent ISPs in Texas. Southwestern Bell controlled the local network, and it soon started limiting our ability to get the lines we had to have so our customers could get to the internet. We turned to competitive local exchange carriers, and even became one ourselves.
SWBT and the other incumbent carriers convinced the FCC to limit competitors' access to the last-mile connections serving homes and small businesses. The FCC refused to enforce its Time Warner Cable open access mandate. More than 7,000 independent ISPs were put out of business. That is why the telephone and cable companies now have a largely unregulated mass-market telecommunications and internet access duopoly.
"Net neutrality" was and is necessary only because of the FCC's decision to close access to local infrastructure. America will continue to suffer high cost, rationed broadband telecommunications and internet for residential, small business, rural and high-cost customers for so long as the FCC allows and encourages the telephone and cable companies' domination over local network access. The FCC must return to its "open access" roots.
Sohn is practical and willing to compromise in seeking bipartisan solutions
I have known Gigi Sohn since she led Public Knowledge. She understands that net neutrality is just a patch and the real solution is true open access to the underlying local telecommunications infrastructure. I certainly don't agree with 100% of Sohn's viewpoints, and we've told her so. But even when we disagree our voices are heard, understood and considered. She is practical and willing to compromise. She will seek bipartisan solutions to the real problem.
The Republicans' effort to derail Gigi Sohn's nomination to the FCC is misguided. All it does is cripple the FCC's ability to return to its roots and do what is truly necessary to get America up to speed with the rest of the developed world when it comes to advanced infrastructure in general and internet ubiquity in particular. This is too important a moment for partisan gamesmanship. Billions of dollars and the connectivity of millions of Americans are at stake.
Sohn is the right person at the right moment in history. Her 30 years of experience in telecom, broadband and technology policy, her strong commitment to the First Amendment and diversity of viewpoints, and her work to promote a competitive environment where consumers are best served more than qualify her to be an FCC Commissioner.
Ron Yokubaitis is CEO of Golden Frog, a company dedicated to protecting internet privacy online, and a director of sister company Giganews, a global provider of Usenet. Both are headquartered in Austin, Texas. This Expert Opinion is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.
The Treasury Department has resolved all of the concerns that the Institute for Local Self Reliance identified in May.
The author of this Expert Opinion is Chris Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Communities across the United States got an unexpected gift from the Biden Administration last week in the form of additional flexibility to use Rescue Plan funds for needed broadband investments, particularly those focused on low-income neighborhoods in urban areas.
When Congress developed and passed the American Rescue Plan Act, it tasked the Treasury Department with writing the rules for some key programs, including the State & Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF). That program is distributing $350 billion to local and state governments, which can use it for a variety of purposes that include broadband infrastructure and digital inclusion efforts.
Treasury released an Interim Final Rule in May, 2021, detailing how local governments would be allowed to invest in broadband. I promptly freaked out, at the restrictions and complications that I (and others) feared would result in local governments backing away from needed broadband investments due to fears of being out of compliance with the rule.
After we worked with numerous local leaders and the National League of Cities to explain the problems we saw in the proposed rule, Treasury released updated guidance in the form of a Q&A document to explain how local governments would be able to build and partner for needed networks.
Given the many challenges the Biden Administration has had to deal with, we did not expect significant new changes to the Rescue Plan rules around the SLFRF. But after many months of deliberations, the Treasury Department has resolved all of the concerns that we identified as areas of concern in May.
As we explain below, local governments have wide latitude to use SLFRF funds for a variety of needed broadband infrastructure investments, especially to resolve affordability challenges.
Summary and TL;DR
The rest of this post will cover some key points in the Final Rule with references to the text in the hopes that it will help communities better understand their options and share key passages with their advisers and attorneys.
The SLFRF Final Rule weighs in at just under 500 pages and comes with an overview. The overview focuses on broadband on pages 39-40 and includes this summary toward the beginning:
Recipients may fund high-speed broadband infrastructure in areas of need that the recipient identifies, such as areas without access to adequate speeds, affordable options, or where connections are inconsistent or unreliable; completed projects must participate in a low-income subsidy program.
The relevant broadband infrastructure sections of the final rule are on pages 260-264 and 294-313. Pages 85-90 focus on digital inclusion, which is relevant and overlapping depending on community plans.
In general, the SLFRF has simplified the rules to give more flexibility to state and local governments (across all of the eligible uses, not just broadband infrastructure). The original rule focused on areas lacking reliable 25/3 Mbps service – with a big focus on the word "reliable." But there is no mention of 25/3 in the Final Rule.
Local governments do still have to make a determination that they are building the network to solve one of the problems that SLFRF uses as a trigger to allow broadband infrastructure investments, but they do not have to get approval from Treasury or any other entity. More detail below, but the triggers include lack of access to a reliable 100/100 connection or lack of access to affordable broadband service.
Any network built with SLFRF must be designed to deliver 100 Mbps download and upload, with the ability to do only 100/20 Mbps in some situations. That is the same as in the Interim Final Rule but now networks must also support the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) for as long as the program exists.
Qualifying to Use SLFRF for Broadband Infrastructure
Treasury set the tone for the revisions by noting on page 261:
Treasury recognizes that there may be a need for improvements to broadband beyond those households and businesses with limited existing service as defined in the interim final rule.
This was a primary concern we heard from cities back in May – that the focus on served/unserved/underserved based on available broadband speeds did not adequately address the problems they faced, even with a strong caveat about reliability.
Cities may have 100 percent high-speed cable coverage but still have neighborhoods where many people are not able to access a broadband Internet connection due to challenges common to impoverished households. Treasury listened to these comments and adjusted the Rule (page 302 – emphasis added):
The final rule expands eligible areas for investment by requiring recipients to invest in projects designed to provide service to households and businesses with an identified need for additional broadband infrastructure investment. Recipients have flexibility to identify a need for additional broadband infrastructure investment: examples of need include lack of access to a connection that reliably meets or exceeds symmetrical 100 Mbps download and upload speeds, lack of affordable access to broadband service, or lack of reliable broadband service. Recipients are encouraged to prioritize projects that are designed to provide service to locations not currently served by a wireline connection that reliably delivers at least 100 Mbps of download speed and 20 Mbps of upload speed, as many commenters indicated that those without such service constitute hard-to-reach areas in need of subsidized broadband deployment.
Local governments need to identify areas where at least some households lack high-speed services, or lack affordable access, or lack reliable broadband Internet service. As Treasury has made very clear, not every housing unit served by a network has to meet this condition (pages 302-303 emphasis added):
Households and businesses with an identified need for additional broadband infrastructure investment do not have to be the only ones in the service area served by an eligible broadband infrastructure project. Indeed, serving these households and businesses may require a holistic approach that provides service to a wider area, for example, in order to make ongoing service of certain households or businesses within the service area economical.
We believe that a good source of data that can demonstrate an affordability or other problem that justifies broadband investment is where schools have sent mobile wireless hotspots home with students. This is a data set that nearly every school district should already have.
How to Prove an Area Qualifies
Even though local governments do not have to get approval for their determination that an area qualifies for this SLFRF expenditure, Treasury provides guidance for what evidence municipalities should consider in making the determination (page 303):
Consistent with further guidance issued by Treasury, in determining areas for investment, recipients may choose to consider any available data, including but not limited to documentation of existing broadband internet service performance, federal and/or state collected broadband data, user speed test results, interviews with community members and business owners, reports from community organizations, and any other information they deem relevant.
And if that was not sufficiently clear, Treasury goes above and beyond to be very clear that cities should not be bullied by the occasional intimidating ISP or some other opponent of more broadband investment (page 303 still):
In addition, recipients may consider the actual experience of current broadband customers when making their determinations; whether there is a provider serving the area that advertises or otherwise claims to offer broadband at a given speed is not dispositive.
This is a tremendously flexible framework. The federal government is giving local governments millions of dollars and trusting them to make wise investments that focus on the most vulnerable residents that are being left out of the opportunities the Internet offers. Some 17 states still limit local Internet choice by interfering with community authority to build a network or partner with an ISP. But everywhere else, communities have no one else to blame if they do not seize this historic opportunity.
Low-Cost Requirements and Encouraged Practices
Treasury adopted stronger requirements to ensure that the public dollars spent on these networks results in networks that are more accessible by all, including those living in poverty (page 308):
In response to many commenters that highlighted the importance of affordability in providing meaningful access to necessary broadband infrastructure, the final rule provides additional requirements to address the affordability needs of low-income consumers in accessing broadband networks funded by SLFRF. Recipients must require the service provider for a completed broadband infrastructure investment project that provides service to households to:
Participate in the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP); or
Otherwise provide access to a broad-based affordability program to low-income consumers in the proposed service area of the broadband infrastructure that provides benefits to households commensurate with those provided under the ACP.
Though it isn't required, Treasury recognizes the importance of a low-cost, high-quality tier of service, and spells out key parts of it (page 309, emphasis added):
Additionally, recipients are encouraged to require that services provided by a broadband infrastructure project include at least one low-cost option offered without data usage caps at speeds that are sufficient for a household with multiple users to simultaneously telework and engage in remote learning. Treasury will require recipients to report speed, pricing, and any data allowance information as part of their mandatory reporting to Treasury.
Other Bits of Interest
The Treasury Department uses OECD data as supporting evidence that the United States has a problem with affordable broadband Internet access on page 87:
However, even in areas where broadband infrastructure exists, broadband access may be out of reach for millions of Americans because it is unaffordable, as the United States has some of the highest broadband prices in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Treasury urges these expenditures use fiber optic technology (pages 306-7):
Treasury continues to encourage recipients to prioritize investments in fiber-optic infrastructure wherever feasible, as such advanced technology enables the next generation of application solutions for all communities and is capable of delivering superior, reliable performance and is generally most efficiently scalable to meet future needs.
As with every previous iteration of these rules, Treasury encourages prioritizing community networks – cooperatives, nonprofits, and local governments (page 298):
Treasury continues to encourage recipients to prioritize support for broadband networks owned, operated by, or affiliated with local governments, nonprofits, and cooperatives.
Recipients of SLFRF funds have to report how they are using the funds. For broadband infrastructure expenditures, that reporting will include speed tiers, pricing, and data caps (page 309). Larger recipients report on a quarterly basis, smaller ones annually. More information on reporting guidelines here.
Additional discussion about the rule is available in the Q&A document, in this Beyond Telecom Law Blog, and CCG's Pots and Pans.
Final note – I might be the only person who calls this the SLurF-uRF program but I encourage you to consider using that too because doing this work shouldn't rob us of a juvenile sense of humor. Thanks for reading this far!
Editor's Note: This piece was authored by Christopher Mitchell, director of the Institute for Local Self Reliance's Community Broadband Network Initiative. His work focuses on helping communities ensure that the telecommunications networks upon which they depend are accountable to the community. He was honored as one of the 2012 Top 25 in Public Sector Technology by Government Technology, which honors the top "Doers, Drivers, and Dreamers" in the nation each year. This piece was originally published on MuniNetworks.org on January 13, 2022.
Broadband Breakfast accepts commentary from informed observers of the broadband scene. Please send pieces to commentary@breakfast.media. The views expressed in Expert Opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of Broadband Breakfast and Breakfast Media LLC.
Tony Thakur: Bandwidth Consumption, 5G and Rural Coverage Will Drive Fiber in 2022
In the coming year, fiber-optic infrastructure will needed to manage and offer increases in bandwidth capacity.
The author of this Expert Opinion is Tony Thakur, chief technology officer of Great Plains Communications
All indications show that we will continue to consume more and more bandwidth in support of our connected online lifestyles.
Without a doubt, the recent move to the hybrid work/learning model and the need to be constantly connected has increased internet usage. And, as video streaming, e-gaming and video conferencing grow in popularity, the drive for more bandwidth will rise.
To deliver much-needed high speed internet service to support these applications, more Fiber will be required to homes and businesses. Fiber infrastructure is capable of delivering huge bandwidth amounts at needed speeds and will be deployed throughout long haul, metro and last mile networks.
Here's a look at what's important to telecom networks, some of the drivers behind the rising trend to fiber, and why fiber is here to stay.
What is behind the rising trend to fiber?
There are several drivers, including:
Bandwidth-consuming applications. When multiple devices are running multiple applications simultaneously, bandwidth is quickly used up and buffering and lag can occur. Thus, networks will need to add more and more bandwidth. The FCC Household Broadband Guide cites rough guidelines for broadband speeds needed for various activities. We can expect to see increases of speed from gigabit to terabit in the future.
5G deployments. This is another area where there is significant growth. Ultra-fast networks like 5G will require large bandwidth connectivity from the towers to the Switching Center. Fiber has become the standard for backhaul networks. We will continue to see more fiber deployed as 5G grows.
Rural coverage. Fiber has been widely deployed in the metro areas and for long haul networks. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law November 15, 2021 includes $65 billion in funding for broadband deployment to improve internet services for rural areas, low-income families and tribal communities. With more focus on providing high speed internet, there will be more and more fiber deployments in the access or last mile across the country. This trend is likely to continue over the next three to five years, especially in the rural areas where access to the internet is limited to dated technologies and delivery methods. We will see more and more fiber to the home deployments as well.
Fiber technologies to be aware of
Here are some fiber technologies that not only facilitate the additional bandwidth, they simplify processes, enable automation and provide new capabilities:
GPON or Gigabit Ethernet passive optical network uses a single fiber with a point-to-multipoint architecture for the last mile to deliver higher speeds to homes and businesses. GPON was introduced several years ago, with downstream capacity of 2.5 G and upstream of 1.2 G. The newer version, XGS PON, provides additional capability with 10 G symmetrical speeds. Most deployments going forward will employ XGS PON to enable higher bandwidth and speeds.
SD-WAN or software-defined wide-area network technology has been widely adopted in the telecom industry today. Customers can obtain the security, improved performance and diversity from their premise to the cloud and other locations, leveraging multiple circuits. That connectivity can be internet, Ethernet or wireless. The technology also includes orchestration capability that simplifies the operational process. This will continue to be adapted as the workforce shifts to Hybrid remote work environments with more apps and data in the cloud.
SDN or software-defined networking is another technology used for cloud connectivity and other Ethernet-based services. The network is connected to data centers and cloud providers to enable "on-line" type services. For example, the SDN network allows for demand-type services. Bandwidth can increase or decrease in minutes via a portal and customers pay for what they use versus the traditional monthly recurring circuit cost model.
Growing cloud connectivity
More and more organizations continue moving to and using cloud connectivity to access their applications and data that reside in cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google, Oracle, IBM, SAP, Nutanix, Salesforce, Alibaba and others. Improved performance, faster access, and more flexibility to access tools and data are merely a few of the benefits.
While some rely on the internet to reach the cloud, there are drawbacks such as latency, limited bandwidth and less than top-level security. A direct connection to cloud platforms via fiber is more secure, faster and more reliable, thus improving performance for applications and workloads.
The private cloud or data center requires significant investment to build and operate. A cloud connect via fiber enables easy access to applications anywhere in the cloud, from any location. Data can be stored at multiple locations around the world, providing better flexibility.
Technology trends come and go. Remember when people relied on dial-up internet access and carried flip phones, Blackberries or pagers? Yet we sometimes overlook the complexity that goes into deploying new technologies. It is not only about the cool technologies themselves, but so much more. Innovation depends upon talented people who can implement services such as cloud. Truly, it is the people that make the difference in how we successfully adapt to new technologies.
Tony Thakur is the chief technology officer of Great Plains Communications where he guides the company's technology vision and focuses on expanding and enhancing its robust fiber network. He has over two decades of experience in C-level and senior executive roles in the telecommunications industry. Tony graduated with a Master of Science in Engineering Management from the Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas, Arlington, Texas. This Expert Opinion is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.